


Turquoise

by orphan_account



Category: Brief mention of Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Brief mention of Star Wars:The Clone Wars, Inspired by Shadowhunter Chronicles, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Changing POV, More tags to be added, Multi, Shadowhunter AU, third person omniscent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 07:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7499664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...White silk when our bodies burn,<br/><b>Blue</b> banners when the lost return...<br/>...Saffron lights the victory march,<br/><b>Green</b> will mend our broken hearts.</p><hr/><p>"I've seen the letters you wrote," he blurts out, and the shocked roundness of her brown eyes make him wish, less than a split second later, for the Angel to have pity and smite him. But no, instead of fleeing with a vague excuse, he digs the hole even deeper. "I know what you mean. About having no one care for you, about not existing unless others gave you worth."</p><p>"Believe me," he continues, and she's certain she might laugh or cry at the awkward revelation, at the shyly tender way he's leaning forward to blanket his hand over hers, at the earnest 'Angel, what am I doing?' look on his face. "Believe me, I've felt the same way," he concludes softly, glancing down at the scuffed toes of her boots.</p><p>"You're not insignificant," she says. "You never were."</p><hr/><p>Based off of the Shadowhunter Chronicles by Cassandra Clare, in particular The Infernal Devices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turquoise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gr8_rach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gr8_rach/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One summer day, a baby girl vanishes.

It is a sunny afternoon day in the present time, though the frail and ailing old man is trapped within memories nineteen years old, his watery blue eyes gazing at, though not seeing, the rows upon rows of books in his expansive study. Though he is alone in this room, save for the motes of dust dancing in the light that filters in as slivers through a large window covered by Venetian blinds, he swears by the Angel Raziel that he can hear laughter. The unrestrained, tip-your-head-back flow of his wife's chortle; the short, dry, and rather pensive chuckle of his daughter; and the rather polite and formal "heh" of his son-in-law; the burble of his granddaughter- he can hear them all.

 

The Clave would call the old man, who is known to the middle-aged generation (those of an age with his daughter, those he'd trained in the art of war, taught to fight and die as befitting the Nephilim they were) as Old Ben, mad. There is no one left in the Stewjon Institute save for him; his wife is dead of grief, his daughter gone mad, and his son-in-law dead at the hands of demons.

 

 And as for his granddaughter, the vivacious little newborn, her fate oft occupies his mind, especially on days in the early summer when the rosebuds begin to open, and the sun's rays are not quite unforgiving. Days as such, at times as such, are when the ghosts haunt him most.

 

_It's this same study, only nineteen years younger, and three people fuller, and a great deal happier, a jovial gathering for easy debate and tea and storytime, gathered around the coffee table._

 

_"And of course, Anakin was greatly shocked when I agreed with the Count and told him to--"_

 

_"Control his insolence," an auburn-haired young woman concludes, with the air of someone who's heard the same story repeatedly, an almost-roll of her brown eyes indicative of the hackneyed nature of the anecdote. She's been told the tale since childhood- it's her father's favorite war story- being captured alongside his greatest friend Anakin Skywalker by a gang of vampires who they were to obtain a sinister man by the name of Dooku from, and the trio's daring escape from the dungeon that they were being held in._

 

_Her mother chimes in, "Obi-Wan, darling, we've all heard the story before."_

 

_"Nonetheless, the look on Anakin's face was absolutely priceless," a younger "Old Ben" interjects dryly, stroking his gray and white-streaked ginger beard in a characteristic gesture._

 

_The grandson of the very man whose delusions of grandeur had sparked the conflict in which Kenobi and his contemporaries - Skywalker, Naberrie, Jinn, Tano, amongst others - were pitted against infernal clockwork armies that no seraph blade or angelic rune could defeat nods. But the young man was not his grandfather, a fact that, if it were not made clear by his lack of resemblance to the man with his dark brown hair and green eyes or by the rapt attention he paid to Obi-Wan's stories of the war, was evident in the way his head tilted up in concern when he hears a giggle from the next room over and raises a finger to his lips._

 

_"I think we've woken Rey up," he says._

 

_His wife stands immediately, as devoted to their newborn daughter as he was. "I'll go," she says, not so much an offer as a confirmation before she weaves gracefully between the bookshelves and disappears from sight._

 

_It's several moments of other noises that are somewhat audible- the creak of floorboards, the squeak of hinges as the door to the nursery opens- before the scream comes, an unadulterated sound of pure terror and fear._

 

_It's his daughter. Despite Obi-Wan getting on in years, at the moment, it could have been a day back when he was fighting in the war again, such was his speed and grace, and he practically vaults over the coffee table as well as several chairs in his rush to get to his daughter, his son-in-law close at his heels, and Sabé bringing up the rear closely._

 

_He yells her name; his son-in-law does so as well and Sabé calls her by a childhood nickname, all of them bolting into the nursery abruptly, swarming around the young woman, whose shrieks have ceased, but now sobs and quakes against her husband's chest, glancing balefully, almost hatefully, at the bundle in the cradle, babbling unintelligible words about how that was not her daughter, the eyes were all wrong, that was not her Rey..._

 

_Obi-Wan hurriedly scoops up the blanket-wrapped package, mentally steeling himself to face whatever it was that prompted his daughter to cry out so, shifting the bundle so he can see its face._

 

_It's his granddaughter._

 

_Sighing, he says to his daughter, "Dear, I don't think you've slept for quite a bit. Perhaps you're seeing things. I think you ought to lie down and rest."_

 

_The hunched-over figure shakes vigorously- not just her head, but her entire body along with it, a frantic but muffled litany pouring from her. "No, no, no, father, I'm not seeing things, my Rey has brown eyes, brown eyes like mother and I, and this baby, I don't know whose it is, has green eyes. Brown eyes don't suddenly morph into green ones..."_

 

_"Darling, your husband has green eyes, it's very possible that her eye color is changing because of her heritage, if it's not a trick of the light," Sabé pipes up, trying to allay her daughter's fears._

 

_"Come on, love," he husband says to her, gently guiding her out of the room by her shoulders, clasping her close to him like she was an infant, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs as they went._

 

 _"_ How wrong I was _," Obi-Wan remembered thinking ten years later, staring at the pile of ashes on the bed with its floral print._

 

_Earlier that day, he'd been speaking to Rey- as her guardian, with her mother committed to a mundane mental ward (no-one knew of what to do with the woman who wouldn't stop muttering about changeling children or scream and tear out her hair and frighten the toddler Rey- Shadowhunters seldom went mad and truly mad, and finally they'd had her put into care) and her father deceased, he and Sabé have taken over her upbringing._

 

_She is several months ten years of age, and though most children have already began to train, are beginning to show their affinity for their angelic warrior blood, little Rey remains fragile and sickly. Green eyes, the color of grass, are her only vibrant feature in a face too thin and pale, framed by thin, mouse brown hair, arms as thin as willow twigs despite the best efforts of her grandfather and grandmother._

_It's a couple of years since she ought to be Marked with runes, but given her weak physical state, he'd asked of the Clave more time for her, and petitioned them again to bid a Silent Brother come to the Stewjon Institute  instead of making a public spectacle of her Marking. Today was the day of her Marking, and Rey could not help but feel a tremor of hesitation when faced with the event, especially as grandfather spoke beside her with such a grave tone of voice- still kindly and still sympathetic, but oh so serious._

 

_She traces her index and middle finger over her right wrist, where the Silent Brother would Mark her, before patting her grandfather on the hand, giving him a smile. "Don't worry, grandpa," she says reassuringly._

 

_"You're not afraid?" he asks, a glint of good-natured humor in his eyes._

 

_The girl nods her head, mussing the neatly combed hairs upon her head and leans forward to clasp him in a hug, though her wispy frame was dwarfed by his much more substantial one. "A little bit," she admits. "Will it hurt?"_

 

_"It will hurt a little bit," he says, patting his granddaughter's back. "But you'll be brave, won't you?"_

 

_"Of course, grandpa."_

 

_But even as the Silent Brother produced the stele and placed the tip to her skin, the little girl felt something wrong. This didn't hurt "a little bit", like her grandfather had promised. It hurt a great deal, in fact, though as the seconds ticked by excruciatingly, she grits her teeth._

 

_Despite this, she knows her grandfather can sense something wrong, knows it as he glances down at her wrist, blue eyes wide with shock. The pain's growing steadily from where the rune has been drawn, and she glances down at her wrist as well, and what she sees gives substance enough to the pain, which she had been prodding to the back of her mind, that the entire scope of the agony comes upon her all at once in the form of her flesh, peeling off and drifting away like ash and dust._

 

_She hears grandfather telling, no, ordering the Silent Brother to stop, but he doesn't cease drawing the last few finishing strokes of the Voyance rune, the first rune every Shadowhunter child received to let them see past glamours, for once a rune was started, it must be completed. She begins to scream as he places upon her skin the last flourish, and her grandfather and the Silent Brother watch, one helplessly, one impassively, as her paper-skin catches fire, the completed rune glowing and licking up her arm like an ember that transitions into a flame, engulfing the little girl in the heart of the ferocious glow._

 

_Her shriek of pain increases sharply, before being cut off, and the only remains were a pile of cinders upon the bedspread._

 

_The Silent Brother had left him to his ruminations with a mere thought projected into Kenobi's mind of condolences, and expressing concern that the girl wasn't truly Nephilim, but a mundane, for Nephilim could be harmed by runes, could be weakened by runes, but they would never be killed by runes. With the stealth of a cat, the robed figure stole away, and there remained Obi-Wan to grieve with Sabé over the lump of ashes._

 

And in the months of early summer, when all spirits are bright save for his and the sun smiles gently instead of being a beacon of destruction, he thinks also of the little girl he knew and raised as granddaughter, and that brings up recollections of panicked eyes when they realized something was wrong. The decoy Rey, though not a Nephilim by blood, was certainly one by heart, dying like one, brave to the last. The memories cause him no end to grief, that of his wife's deathbed and her muttering about their Rey, the ashes, the scent of burned flesh, the day the true Rey by blood was replaced with a changeling child.

 

There's no one here in the Stewjon Institute except for Old Obi-Wan Kenobi and his ghosts, and when the tapping comes at the door, he does not expect for his ghosts to take form.

 

At the door stands a tall and pale young man with dark, flowing hair, haunted golden eyes instead of the blue ones of his old friend Anakin that Obi-Wan recalls so fondly; but there's a little bit of Padmé in him too, in the freckles dotting his face and his full lips, a bit of his mother in his coloring, and in his face shape, Obi-Wan sees the father of this man.  _Skywalker_ , he thinks in assessment of the boy's brooding expression, like that of the lovesick Anakin's.  _Solo, too,_ he adds mentally, noting the set to his mouth that appeared a permanent smirk. He's had a few chance meetings with the currently living Skywalker family members over the years, and he vaguely remembers a little boy who was named after him.

 

But what he does not expect at all is the young woman standing next to Ben, dwarfed by Skywalker's grandson, though she stood nearly as tall as Obi-Wan did, with a delicate fierceness to her. At first, he thinks she's a Skywalker as well- she has the look of Padmé, and Anakin's mother as well, though he then takes a second glance. Instead of being more up-tilted, her earth-brown eyes are aligned almost completely levely with only a small incline; instead of the fine, arched brows of Padmé, her brows are thicker; and her face was more square in contrast to Padmé's heart-shaped face.

 

And all those little things, every single one of them, remind the old man of a wife long dead. How could he have mistaken her for Padmé's descendant at first, with those features he woke up next to for over half a century? Granted, Sabé was once employed as a decoy on the basis of her resemblance to Padmé, but she was so uniquely featured in her own way. And here was this girl, who he did not know, showing up at his door, wearing his wife's face.

 

For the first time in a long time, Obi-Wan Kenobi is at a loss for words, but the young woman speaks first.

 

"Good afternoon, sir. My name is Rey."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Obi-Wan's narrative is heavily inspired by Aloysius Starkweather ( http://shadowhunters.wikia.com/wiki/Aloysius_Starkweather ), but I swear, he's much kinder as a character.
> 
> I'm a supporter of both Rey Kenobi and Rey Palpatine, so I've decided to make her descended from both lineages. I also support Sabé/Obi-Wan, and since Keira looks quite a bit like Daisy, I've taken the liberty of making her Rey's grandmother.
> 
> Since this is a crossover between two universes, I've altered some continuity points at my own discretion. I hope, however, that I'll be able to keep elements of both universes present.
> 
> Stewjon ( http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Stewjon ) is Obi-Wan's homeworld.
> 
> Automatons ( http://shadowhunters.wikia.com/wiki/Automatons ) are the mentioned "infernal army" of Sheev Palpatine. The resemblance is to the Separatist droid army of the Clone Wars, of course.
> 
> Runes ( http://shadowhunters.wikia.com/wiki/Runes )
> 
> Silent Brothers ( http://shadowhunters.wikia.com/wiki/Silent_Brothers )
> 
> Mentally casting **Raffey Cassidy** as "Rey", **Daria Sidorchuk** as Rey's mother, and **Tim Meiresone** as Rey's father.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr at kanjiklub-has-been-told, or jessiepava (which I don't really use anymore since it was a Star Wars sideblog, and my main blog, kanjiklub-has-been-told is literally mostly Star Wars now, which sorta defeated the purpose).


End file.
